Animadverto
by ofravenwings
Summary: Loki is sent to Midgard for one last chance at redemption. Darcy accepts the job of babysitting him. Hey, she tased Thor once, how much harder can it be to deal with an essentially human Loki? She has no idea. Animadverto (Latin): to turn the mind to, take notice of, see, perceive.
1. Chapter 1: Dinner, and

Loki picks up his fork. Pokes the food on his plate. Scowls.

"What _is_ this?" he asks, scowling again.

Darcy takes a sip of wine - okay, she drinks half of her glass in one go. She didn't think that this was going to be smooth sailing, but neither did she expect things to get difficult as soon as the appetisers were served. Loki pokes his food again, hard enough that the tines of his fork squeak against his plate. The woman sitting at the next table shoots him a narrow look, but thankfully says nothing.

Darcy fights the urge to tell Loki that he looks like a three-year-old as he slides the fork in between the layers of his food, lifts them up to inspect the filling. "It's cannelloni," she says. She forks up some from her own plate, chews and swallows. "Pasta filled with spinach and ricotta cheese."

_Because you made me order_, she adds silently. _Because you decided that tonight, conveniently, you knew nothing about Midgardian food. And you also said that you wouldn't complain, that you would eat anything._

Loki finally picks up his knife, cuts a small piece. "It's green."

"I thought that would actually be a good thing," she says, nodding to the green silk scarf he wears with his three-piece suit. Naturally, he never conveniently forgets the intricacies of Midgardian fashion. God forbid he be seen in anything non-tailored. Or that he actually didn't wear green and black. Even now, he can't let go of that habit.

He curls his lip, but he pops the food into his mouth. Chews slowly. "There's no meat."

"That would be why the menu didn't mention any. And why I didn't when you asked me. You _said_ it would be okay, remember?" Darcy is aware that her voice is beginning to rise above the general hubbub of the restaurant. Aware also that she doesn't care. She takes another healthy swallow of wine. _Why_ had she thought this would be a good idea?

"In Asgard, we feast as the warriors we are." Loki sets down his cutlery, neatly lining up his knife and fork. He folds his hands on the table, and she catches a glimpse of the silver cuffs around his wrists. Engraved with runes, they are supposed to lock his magic away, render him harmless. Almost human. "We do not starve ourselves."

"Well, gee, I'm sorry the menu didn't include a roast beast on a spit. And before you think about it, don't even start on the wine, okay?" Darcy sets down her own glass so hard that the red wine spills over the edge, stains blooming on the white tablecloth.

"But we always-"

That's enough. Darcy grabs her bag and stalks back through the restaurant, ignoring the people staring at her. She's tempted to leave Loki to pay, but she just knows that he'll pull his confused-about-Midgardian-currency bit. Or manage to get arrested. And then she'll just get called in to collect him anyway, with the bonus of having to deal with a pissed-off Tony Stark. _Again_.

She swipes her Stark credit card, signs her name so hard that the pen bites through the paper. Cringes as she sees the amount on the receipt for all the food they haven't even eaten. It's more than she used to spend on groceries for the span of two weeks.

"Bad night, honey?" the maitre'd asks as she pulls on her coat.

"Bad life, more like."

She can't help looking back across the restaurant. Loki is still sitting where she left him, just staring at her empty chair, his eyebrows doing a wounded puppy dog thing. She makes herself turn away. Stomps out of the restaurant as best as she can in high heels.

In the time they've been inside, it's started to rain. When the car had dropped them off, the golden light of the sunset had bathed the restaurant, giving her the hope of actually having a nice evening. Even a vague hope that maybe this was going to work.

"Maybe you're just stupid, Darce," she says.

In the time is takes for her to cross the road to where the bodyguards wait in their car, she is soaked through. She knocks on the tinted window, getting a good glimpse of her once-carefully curled hair now limp and bedraggled before the guard lowers the window.

"I'm out for the night," she says. "You guys okay to get him back?"

The guard nods once, and raises the window again. She turns away before she can see her reflection again.

Across the road, the restaurant door opens. She hurries away before she can see if it's Loki coming out onto the street. She flags down the first cab she sees, crawls into the back seat. She gives the driver her address, breathes out slowly as the car accelerates into traffic.

They're crossing the bridge before she remembers that she no longer lives in Brooklyn.

She taps on the barrier. "Sorry, I gave you the wrong address. I…moved recently. Like today."

The driver says nothing, just waits for her to give him the new address.

"Stark Tower," she says. "I live at Stark Tower now."

#

When she enters the common living space the two apartments share, she is so tense that her muscles are shaking. Or maybe that's the cold, she thinks, as water puddles on the carpet beneath her feet. She plucks at the skirt of her dress. Silk, of course, and utterly ruined now.

The living space is empty, the lights out. That's a relief, at least. She'd half expected to find him there waiting.

She kicks off her shoes, picks them up by the straps. Pads across to the closed door leading to the right-hand apartment. There's no light beneath it. He could be home, and sitting in the dark or sleeping. He could still be out.

Maybe he's still in the restaurant, surrounded by a gaggle of beautiful women, laughing and being as charming as she knows he can, when he wants to.

Something twists in her at that thought. It takes her a moment to recognise it as jealousy.

"God, like I even care what he does," she says, turning away from the door. "It's not like I have to be with him every hour of the day."

She goes to the door leading to her own side of the apartment. Locks it behind her, turns on every light she can find. Grabs a beer from the well-stocked fridge, fills the bath.

All the time, she can't shake the feeling that he was standing on the other side of his door, that wounded puppy dog look still on his face.

#

"I'm guessing from the fact that you've been staring at that page all morning that last night wasn't great?" Jane asks.

Darcy looks up from the pages spread over her desk. This, too, is part of the assignment. Loki goes to work with Banner or Stark when they require his services (whatever that might actually mean), and she works with whoever needs her in the meantime.

There are dark circles beneath Jane's eyes, and Darcy just bets that she was up all night working. Again.

Jane hooks a chair, pulls it over. "And you haven't even touched your coffee. Things were that bad?"

Darcy takes off her glasses, rubs her eyes. They feel gritty, and she knows that she looks like hell. She barely slept, despite the bath and beer and a couple of sleeping pills tossed atop. And when she'd woken, the apartment had been flooded by light. Knowing that Loki was scheduled to work with Banner that day, she'd intended on being up and out of the apartment as early as possible in order to avoid him.

The shared area had been as empty as the night before, his door still closed. Somehow, not even knowing if he was home - or if he had _been_ home - made things even worse.

"It wasn't that bad, I guess. If you define not bad as having dinner with a genocidal maniac. Is it even genocide when someone wants to kill the whole human race?" She rubs her eyes again. "Besides, I spent two and a half hours getting ready. I went out and bought a cute dress, some shiny shoes. Well, I put them on credit, anyway. So now I owe money on cute clothes that I can't even wear."

"If you send the receipts to Pepper, she'll probably cover it. Job-related expense."

Darcy raises an eyebrow. "Really?"

"You should have seen the stuff she made them cover for me the first time I went to Asgard. Just email her, and she'll take care of it. Hell, she'll probably set up an account for you somewhere. She's pushed pretty hard for this."

"I guess anyone who can love Tony Stark must have a pretty big heart." Darcy glances up at the security cameras, decides that if Stark can't handle hearing bad things about himself, then he can just deal with it.

"You don't have to do this, Darce," Jane says.

"I did volunteer."

"Because you needed the money. And the apartment." Jane hesitates, then places a hand on Darcy's shoulder. "You didn't ask to get caught up in all of this. I have some money saved up. If you need it, it's yours. Consider it a long-term loan."

Darcy has to blink away sudden tears. "You'd do that?"

"Of course. And you wouldn't even need to pay for a plane ticket. Thor could take you anywhere you want. Paris, London. You could just start over. Get away from everything."

Darcy peels off her knitted cap. Static crackles through her hair, which probably really adds to the general attractiveness she's got going on this morning. "I don't know. I figured if I could deal with-" She breaks off. Swallows. "I figured I could handle Loki. A muzzled Loki, anyway. Without his magic and strength, he's just a guy, you know?"

"I suspect you could strip everything away from Loki, and he still wouldn't be just a guy."

Darcy shakes her head. "I don't really give up on things once I've decided to do them."

"I noticed." Jane smiles. "You see something in him, don't you? In Loki?"

Darcy shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe."

"No, but I see the look in your eyes when you talk about him. It's the same kind of look Thor gets when he talks about his brother. Like he sees a different person to the rest of us." Jane goes to the coffee machine, pours two cups. She adds copious amounts of sugar and cream to Darcy's. "After New York, I spent a lot of time imagining Loki being drawn and quartered. Or electrocuted, but in a thousand little tiny shocks, each one drawn out for as long as possible. Eaten by sharks, feet first."

"Remind me never to cross you?" Darcy takes a sip of her coffee. "God, do you think I'm in shock or something? This much sugar will give me diabetes."

"You don't get diabetes from eating sugar," Jane says absently. "I do know that Thor still sees good in Loki. Enough to petition his father for one last chance for Loki. To be brought to Midgard, stripped of his powers, live as a human." She sips her own coffee. "Even for all of that hope, Thor was still worried about you last night. So much so that I practically had to tie him down to stop him coming out and checking on you."

Oh. So Jane wasn't exactly working all night, then. "Practically?" Darcy takes another mouthful of the coffee. Damn Jane, the sugar is actually helping.

Jane flushes, buries her face in her mug.

Darcy punches her lightly in the arm. "Hey, what happens in your bedroom stays in your bedroom. Except for any graphic descriptions of rippling muscles you feel like sharing. Or photos. Videos, too."

Jane punches her back, laughing. "Seriously, though, Darce, you don't have to be the one to do this."

"Hey, I'm the one who tased a god, remember?" Darcy says. "Besides, someone has to do it. And it's not like there were people lining up to volunteer." Darcy turns her mug around, rubs her thumb over the Stark logo. "You want to know the stupid thing? Even though he tried to enslave the world, even though he tried to kill us, even though besides all that, he can be a total ass, I kind of want to. I think he deserves a chance. Does that make me crazy?"

"Probably. Definitely."

"I thought so."


	2. Chapter 2: Before the beginning

Two weeks earlier:

They sit around the large table, everyone looking down at the folders Stark had flung towards them. The folders are bright red, the colour of fresh-welling blood. The papers they hold are almost blindingly white beneath the fluorescent lights.

Darcy opened her folder at the same time as everyone else. She's read the first paragraph of the first page a dozen times, and still the words there aren't sinking in. She presses her hands against the side of the table, trying to steady their shaking. Her palms are damp, and she hopes like hell that the moisture won't stain the wood. It's mahogany, she thinks. And then she thinks of the "_That is mahogany!"_ line from the movie adaptation of _The Hunger Games_, and then she's trying to remember if the line is in the book. And where her copy of the book is, anyway. Hopefully not in one of the boxes that Mike took. If he did, she was going to have to go to him, and she was going to have to-

The conversation has started up again, and she pulls herself away from her train of thought, glad for the distraction from the place her thoughts had meandered to. She quickly presses record on the digital recorder she's been tasked with.

"I, for one, think that it's a stupid idea," Stark says. He is sitting on the opposite side of the oval table to Darcy. He has his feet up on the table, uncaring of the fact that his scuffed soles are practically shoved into the fact of Captain America. "Therefore, as a stupid idea, I vote that we agree. Steve?"

Cap - Darcy _cannot_ think of him as anything but Cap or Captain America, despite the fact that he's out of uniform - looks up from the notes he's been making. His handwriting is neat, the kind of writing Darcy learned way back in school and managed to keep doing for all of two days before her writing devolved into a loopy scrawl. "You cannot be serious. The man is a war criminal."

Stark produced a bag of what looks like pumpkin seeds from a pocket, tosses a pinch into his pocket and chews. Loudly. "The side that wins gets to decide who's a criminal and who's a hero."

Cap sighs, turns to Thor, seated on his other side. Thor is in full armour, and though she can't see it, Darcy knows that Mjolnir is beneath the table near his feet. Thor doesn't let it far from him these days.

"He is my brother," Thor says. "For all that he has done, I believe there is still something good in him."

"So that's a yes from Thor, and a moral judgement from the Cap," Stark says, chewing another mouthful of seeds. "Pretty much as expected, then."

"Are we certain that the spell will keep his magic contained?" Jane asks. She is seated on Thor's other side, her chair pulled up so close to his that she's practically in his lap. "The memory stuff, they're sure they can do it?"

"If my father says it can be done, then it can and it will," Thor says.

Jane looks up at him for a long moment. "If Thor agrees, then so do I."

Stark nods, pulls his feet off the table. "Big guy?"

Banner is seated on Darcy's right. She doesn't miss the fact that Stark passed right over her. There's a moment where something screws up tight inside her, then she reminds herself that she's just here as a secretary, nothing more. She folds her hands in her lap, checks that the recorder is still running.

Banner frowns as he pages through his folder. His papers are dog-eared in several places, and he's scrawled equations on the back of one sheet. He's the only person who's read through the whole folder, Darcy thinks. He's immersed in the papers still, and it takes Stark tossing seeds at him for him to look up.

Banner blinks, pushes his glasses up. Picks up some of the seeds and rubs them absently between his fingers. "I can't say that the offer isn't tempting," he says. "To be able to get hold of some of Asgard's technology. We could change everything."

"Is that a yes I hear there?" Stark asks.

"Isn't one monster enough?" Banner asks, his eyes flicking down to his papers again.

Stark's answer is to flick more seeds at Banner.

"Is it going to be worth it? Even without those memories, the guy is unstable."

"He is also my brother," Thor says, leaning over the table. "Take care to remember that."

"There's no guarantee of safety," Banner says. "No matter what Asgard says, nothing is ever foolproof."

"Last time I checked, none of us came with a guarantee of safety," Stark says. "And they call us heroes."

"We didn't try to destroy a whole town or conquer a planet with an alien army, though," Black Widow says. She and Hawkeye are on the other side of Banner. Both are dressed in solid black, guns at their belts. They sit with their chairs close together, pulled slightly away from the table. "Loki did that. And has probably done worse."

"And can remember none of it," Thor says.

"The question is, why do Asgard need us to do their dirty work?" Cap asks. "Surely they're better equipped to deal with him?"

"There is a disadvantage in being close to someone," Thor says. "We require someone who can be rational, who does not come to this work with their mind already coloured with notions about Loki. We need someone who will give him a fair chance. It is what my parents wish. They gave me a chance to learn by sending me to Midgard, and they wish the same for their younger son."

"About that," Stark says. "Reading these files, it feels as though there's another story written between the lines. Is there more that Odin is keeping from us?"

Thor's hands move beneath the table. "You have been provided with what Odin deems necessary. It is enough."

"Do you honestly think that he deserves another chance?" Hawkeye asks. He has been silent all along, though his eyes have followed the flow of conversation closely. "Especially if there are things that Odin isn't telling us. Why not just blast the bastard out into space, lock him away in the deepest and darkest dungeon you can find?"

Thor's eyes burn as they fix on Hawkeye. "I have already lost my brother to the abyss once. I do not care to repeat the experience."

"And he came back again, and look what he did," Black Widow says, her eyes sliding to Hawkeye. "I don't even know why we're considering this."

"Because Stark wants his weapons," Hawkeye says. "He wants the Asgardian toys so he can take them apart, figure out how their magic works. Magic is just tech that we don't understand yet, right, Stark? And you'll take it apart, build something bigger and better. And then what?"

"Of all the people to ask that, I didn't think it would be you." Stark stands, begins pacing back and forth across the room. "We've seen the Tesseract, the sceptre that Loki used on you. From what I hear, Odin has a whole hall of seized weapons. Who knows what else is out there? I know that I'd like to know. So we can be prepared for the next time someone tries to invade."

"And upgrading your suit with magic has nothing to do with it," Hawkeye says. "Or making new weapons."

Stark shrugs. "I'm not going to pretend that I don't want to get my hands on some of their tech. I know that Banner is with me on that one. Jane, too."

Banner and Jane both shrug, look away from Hawkeye's hard stare.

"So." Stark claps his hands together. "We have yes from me, from Thor and Jane. Banner?"

"I guess it would be pretty hypocritical of me to argue against anyone getting a second chance," Banner says. "I vote yes, but with reservations."

"Reservations duly noted." Stark turns to Hawkeye and Black Widow, who both shake their heads. "And two nos." He claps his hands together again. "Well, I guess we have a deal with Asgard."

"Shouldn't it-" Darcy's voice breaks as everyone turns to look at her. "Shouldn't it be a unanimous decision?"

Black Widow nods, a movement so tiny that Darcy would have missed it if she hadn't been looking directly at her.

Stark fixes Darcy with an unreadable gaze. "Do you think it should be, Ms Lewis?"

Darcy looks down at the recorder. "It seems like it's something pretty important. What's the point in asking everyone unless you're actually going to listen to what they have to say? And it seems to me that Black Widow and Hawkeye make pretty good arguments."

Stark says nothing for a long time. "And what do you think?"

"I don't know. I'm just here to sort out the recorder, right?"

Stark grins that patented smile of his. "Right." He claps his hands together again. "So, we have a deal with Asgard, then. You can all go back to…whatever it was that you were doing. Ms Lewis, would you mind staying back for a few minutes?"

Darcy flashes Jane what she hopes is a look of veiled panic. Jane takes her hand, squeezes. Darcy supposes it's meant to be reassuring. It probably would be, if Jane's hand wasn't trembling more than Darcy's.

One by one, everyone files out of the room. Thor lays a hand briefly on Darcy's shoulder as he passes, his fingers warm even through her blouse and jacket. Finally, only Darcy and Stark remain.

Stark turns to the sideboard. A range of refreshments are set up there, though no one had touched them during the meeting. Darcy had allowed herself one longing look at the carafe of coffee, but that was all.

Stark pours himself a shot of something green - wheatgrass juice, she presumes - and knocks it back. Grabs a bottle of water, pauses, then pours a cup of coffee, bringing it, along with sugar and creamer, over to the table for Darcy.

She takes the opportunity to busy herself doctoring the coffee with generous amounts of both cream and sugar, delaying the moment she has to look up and meet Stark's eyes again. When she finally does, he's back in his seat again, feet up on table.

"I'm sorry," Darcy says. "I shouldn't have said anything. I don't have to add that to the written record if you don't want me to."

"Screw the written record," Stark says. "I don't care if that meeting ever gets transcribed, though I suppose legal will." He unscrews his water bottle, takes a swig. His eyes haven't left Darcy the whole time. "Jane tells me that you have yourself a situation where you're in need of an apartment. And a job with some security. Things aren't that stable economically these days. Temp work just isn't what it used to be."

Darcy takes a swallow of her coffee. Too sweet. "I'm getting by. And the apartment…I have friends I can stay with while I look for some place."

"And what about that ex of yours? Mike, was it?"

Darcy looks up at him sharply. "How do you know about Mike? What's Jane been telling you?"

"Jane has actually been fairly reluctant to divulge much about you. And you've done a pretty good job of keeping yourself out of sight. Apart from the part where you tased a God."

"Jane hit him with the car first."

Stark smiles. "Of course she did." He swings his feet back down off the table again. "But I didn't ask you to stay here to talk about that. I want to know what you really think. About Loki. Ignore everything else about the deal with Asgard. Do you think he deserves a second chance?"

Darcy's throat is dry. She wants another swallow of coffee, but she knows that the sweetness would be too cloying, would just make her sick. She swallows hard, wishes that the action could wash away the tide of memories rising in her. "I think everyone deserves a second chance. And a third, and a fourth, if they need it."

Stark nods. "So, about this job…"


End file.
